Overnight News Digest: Manhattan grand jury votes to indict Trump

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Los Angeles Times

On the third day of the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this month, two men delivered on experts’ biggest concerns about attempts to access election machines after the 2020 election.

Using copies of election software — improperly removed from multiple counties — that has been circulating among election deniers, they presented an unfounded narrative that they had discovered evidence of fraud and foreign interference. They also discussed their goal to secure jobs as election officers and build a team of computer experts to access elections systems in more than 60 counties in order to prove their theories.

“This is exactly the situation that I have warned about,” said election technology expert Kevin Skoglund, a senior technical advisor at the National Election Defense Coalition. “Having the software out there allows people to make wild claims about it. It creates disinformation that we have to watch out for and tamp down.”

Vatican formally repudiates 'Doctrine of Discovery' used to justify colonization

National Catholic Reporter

The Vatican on March 30 formally repudiated the "Doctrine of Discovery," officially declaring that an historic policy used to justify colonial exploitation is "not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church."

The rejection of the concept, which has been used to describe a collection of papal teachings dating back to the 15th century, comes after years of pressure from Indigenous groups and some government leaders, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

"In no uncertain terms, the Church's magisterium upholds the respect due to every human being," states a two-page text released jointly by the Vatican's Dicasteries for Culture and Education and Promoting Integral Human Development. "The Catholic Church therefore repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political 'doctrine of discovery.' "

US condemns Russia’s detention of Wall Street Journal reporter

The Hill

The U.S. on Thursday expressed deep concern over Russia’s detention of an American journalist for The Wall Street Journal, issuing a condemnation of what it calls the Kremlin’s attempts to intimidate and stifle free speech.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed in a statement the arrest of Evan Gershkovich, an American citizen and reporter for the Wall Street Journal. It was the first such detention of an American journalist over allegations of spying since the Cold War, according to the Journal. […]

Gershkovich’s arrest was reported by the Wall Street Journal early Wednesday morning, citing a statement from Russia’s main security agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), that it had detained Gershkovich for espionage.

Russia’s covert operations have a major weakness: Hubris

The Washington Post

The tale of Brazilian student Victor Muller Ferreira — or rather, alleged Russian agent Sergey Cherkasov — is a remarkable modern story of spycraft. But if this tale details the strengths of Russian covert operations, it also reveals their weaknesses.

As detailed by my colleague Greg Miller this week, Cherkasov is alleged to have spent almost a decade building a fictitious persona for Ferreira. He appears to have used fraudulent documents including a birth certificate and a driver’s license to create an identity in Brazil, taking advantage of lax record-keeping in the country and perhaps exploiting inside help.

Cherkasov was ultimately exposed. Last year, he was turned away by Dutch authorities who had been alerted to his real history as an agent of Russia’s military intelligence wing, the GRU, by the FBI, according to The Washington Post’s reporting. He was returned to Brazil, where he is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence.

Defense experts tell House panel China remains biggest cyberthreat

UPI

The commander of the U.S. Cyber Command told a House subcommittee Thursday that China remains the biggest strategic threat to the United States.

Citing China's state-sponsored cyber actors, Gen. Paul Nakasone told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies and Innovation that the threat is growing and has global implications.

‘Vulkan files’ leak reveals Putin’s global and domestic cyberwarfare tactics

The Guardian

[…] The software engineers behind these systems are employees of NTC Vulkan. On the surface, it looks like a run-of-the-mill cybersecurity consultancy. However, a leak of secret files from the company has exposed its work bolstering Vladimir Putin’s cyberwarfarecapabilities.

Thousands of pages of secret documents reveal how Vulkan’s engineers have worked for Russian military and intelligence agencies to support hacking operations, train operatives before attacks on national infrastructure, spread disinformation and control sections of the internet.

The company’s work is linked to the federal security service or FSB, the domestic spy agency; the operational and intelligence divisions of the armed forces, known as the GOU and GRU; and the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence organisation.

"The [People's Republic of China] combines authoritarianism with a revisionist foreign policy and stands as the only competitor with both the intent and power to reshape the global order to its advantage," Nakasone said. "Competition with the PRC takes place on a global scale, and although that contest remains below the threshold of armed conflict, it is nonetheless strategic in its effects and its implications."

Bakhmut is 'slaughter-fest for Russians,' says top US general

The Kyiv Independent

There are about 6,000 mercenaries of the Kremlin-controlled Wagner Group fighting in the eastern city of Bakhmut, according to the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley.

Milley told U.S. lawmakers that 20-30,000 Wagner recruits, many from prisons, are fighting alongside mercenaries. He highlighted the high number of casualties they are facing in the battle as Ukrainian forces deal considerable damage to these fighters.

"The Ukrainians are doing a very effective area defense that is proven to be very costly to the Russians. For about the last 20, 21 days, the Russians have not made any progress whatsoever in and around Bakhmut," he said on March 29.

"So it's a slaughter-fest for the Russians. They're getting hammered in the vicinity of Bakhmut, and the Ukrainians have fought very, very well," he added.

Ukraine by rail: Inside Zelenskyy's efforts to buoy a nation

AP News

The caravan of unmarked vehicles tears across the muddy grass next to the playground. On the merry-go-round, the children stop swinging and spinning. The curious — parents and other residents of this southeastern town — gather around. Car doors swing open, and heavily armed security guards in battlefield fatigues spill out.

And just like that, he is among them: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wartime leader and his country’s chief morale officer.

This week, Zelenskyy shuttled across the country on a 48-hour train trip to rally soldiers who are battling Russian forces — and, just as important, to buoy the communities often caught in the crossfire. Here, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the front lines, Zelenskyy came to see for himself the destruction from a Russian attack that damaged dozens of apartments one week ago.

Russia to offer food for North Korean weapons - US

BBC News

Russia is sending a delegation to North Korea to offer food in exchange for weapons, US national security spokesperson John Kirby has said.

Mr Kirby said any arms deal between North Korea and Russia would violate UN Security Council resolutions.

The US has previously accused North Korea of supplying arms to the Russian military in Ukraine and the Wagner group of Russia mercenaries.

Pyongyang has previously denied the claims.

Fugitive Russian father convicted of insulting army detained in Belarus

Reuters

A Russian man who was sentenced to two years in prison for discrediting the army and had his daughter taken from him has been detained in Belarus after fleeing house arrest, a lawyer said on Thursday.

Lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov said Alexei Moskalyov, 54, had been arrested in the capital Minsk, most likely as a result of turning on his mobile phone and giving away his location.

"Apparently someone made a mistake, maybe it was due to him using a mobile phone," said Zakhvatov, who had been in contact with Moskalyov. "Most likely it was due to him using a mobile phone improperly," he told Reuters.

China uses Putin's weakness to increase its leverage over Russia, says Ursula von der Leyen Access to the comments

Euronews

The People's Republic of China is exploiting the weakness of President Vladimir Putin to maximise its geopolitical influence over Russia, leading to a reversal of the power balance between the two long-time allies, Ursula von der Leyen has said in a critical speech.

"Far from being put off by the atrocious and illegal invasion of Ukraine, President Xi is maintaining his 'no-limits friendship' with Putin's Russia," von der Leyen said on Thursday morning.

"But there has been a change of dynamic in the relationship between China and Russia. It is clear from the visit that China sees Putin's weakness as a way to increase its leverage over Russia.

"And it is clear that the power balance in that relationship – which for most of the last century favoured Russia – has now reversed."

Turkey approves Finland’s NATO application, clearing the last hurdle. Sweden is still waiting

CNN

Turkey has finally approved Finland’s application to join NATO, putting an end to months of delays while also continuing to block Sweden from joining the military alliance.  

The Turkish Parliament voted unanimously in favor of Finland’s membership on Thursday, clearing the last hurdle in the accession process.  

The vote fulfills Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “promise” to allow Finland in the defense alliance. Turkey was the last NATO member to approve Finland’s accession, although Hungary only did so on Monday.  

In a statement after the vote, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said his country is “now ready to join NATO.”  

ICJ orders US to pay compensation for freezing Iranian assets

Al Jazeera

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered the United States to pay compensation to Iranian companies after ruling that Washington had illegally allowed courts to freeze their assets.

The United Nations’ top court, also known as the World Court, did not specify the exact amount in its ruling on Thursday but said it would be determined in a later phase.

In a blow for Tehran, however, the tribunal in The Hague said it did not have jurisdiction over $1.75bn in frozen assets from Iran’s central bank held in a Citibank account in New York, by far the largest amount claimed back by Tehran.

House approves sweeping GOP energy package

E&E News

The House approved a massive energy and permitting package 225-204 on Thursday after a three-month sprint by the new Republican majority to cobble together dozens of legislative priorities.

The package now heads to the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the legislation would be “dead on arrival.” Still, portions of the bill have a chance of forming the foundation for bipartisan negotiations. […]

The package — which combines roughly 20 bills from several committees — would increase access to public lands for energy development and make it easier to increase mining. It would also reduce the ability of states to block Clean Water Act permits and would streamline the National Environmental Policy Act review process. […]

Notably, the bill would repeal several provisions from last year’s climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act, including a fee on methane emissions and approximately $27 billion in funding for a green bank within EPA to deploy more clean energy projects.

Kamala Harris Tours Slave Fortress in Ghana, Asserts ‘Horrors'... 'Must Be Taught'

BET

In the first leg of her tour of Africa to strengthen relations between the United States and nations on the continent, Vice President Kamala Harris is making a case as to why “the horrors” of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade must be taught.

“There are dungeons here where human beings were kept — men, women, and children.  They were kidnapped from their homes,” she said in an emotional speech at Cape Coast Castle, which is about 89 miles from the Ghanian capitol Accra.  “They were transported hundreds of miles from their homes, not really sure where they were headed.

“And they came to this place of horror — some to die, many to starve and be tortured, women to be raped — before they were then forcibly taken on a journey thousands of miles from their home to be sold by so-called merchants and taken to the Americas, to the Caribbean to be an enslaved people.”

John Fetterman will return to the Senate April 17 after treatment for depression

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Sen. John Fetterman will return to the Senate the week of April 17.

The update, first reported by Politico, comes six weeks after Fetterman started inpatient treatment for depression at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Fetterman spokesperson Joe Calvello confirmed the return date to The Inquirer.

Calvello told The Inquirer he did not know when Fetterman would be released from the hospital in advance of his return. Fetterman’s staff said last week his release was coming without providing a specific timeline.

Manchin ready 'to go to court' over EV tax credit rules

S&P Global

US Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said March 29 that he would try to sue the Biden administration if it allows too much of the critical mineral processing for electric vehicles qualified for tax credits to happen overseas.

Manchin, chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and a key backer of the Inflation Reduction Act, has been fuming for weeks about the Biden administration's broad interpretation of "processing" in its Clean Vehicle Credit incentives, which could open up more of the manufacturing process to other countries and leave only the final assembly to US companies.

The incentives are tied to the sources of the critical minerals used in an EV's battery and the final assembly location of a vehicle. Beginning this year, a vehicle can only qualify for the full $7,500 credit if 40% of its battery's critical minerals and 50% of the overall value of its battery components came from the US or countries with whom the US has a free-trade agreement. The vehicle's final assembly must also take place in North America.

Judge strikes down Obamacare provisions requiring insurers cover some preventive care services

NBC News

A federal judge in Texas has struck down  Affordable Care Act provisions that require health insurers to provide some free preventive care services.

The ruling could jeopardize coverage nationwide for people relying on the health care law for preventive services such as screenings for cancer as well as HIV drugs. 

In the decision, U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor mentioned his previous ruling on the structure of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which was created under Obamacare and helps determine preventive services coverage, saying it violates the appointments clause of the Constitution and thus its related preventive care mandates are unlawful.

O'Connor also said Obamacare's requirement to cover drugs preventing HIV, known as PrEP, violates the religious rights of plaintiffs under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

DeSantis’ war on ‘woke’ may not play well in important swing states

Orlando Sentinel

The 2023 legislative session was designed to give Gov. Ron DeSantisvictories in advance of a likely run for president, but experts said the issues he’s promoting could haunt him in key swing states if he becomes the Republican candidate for the White House. […]

But in the states he’d need to win in 2024, the anti-woke rhetoric that DeSantis has made his trademark has not really worked as well as Republicans had thought it would. […]

“The results of 2022 [show] an electorate that is not interested in the kind of culture war that DeSantis seems eager to fight,” said Christopher Beem, of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University.

How Disney just beat Ron DeSantis

Vox

Disney’s lawyers outwitted [Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis]. The new board members overseeing the governance of Disney said in a meeting Wednesday that their predecessors had rendered them essentially powerless in a policy ratified just before they took over.

As part of that agreement, Disney is authorized to build another theme park in its special tax district, known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District, so long as the company follows local laws on building parameters. Also, the five-person board, known as the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, would need the company’s approval to make any significant changes to its property.

The new board’s only purview is to maintain roads and other essential infrastructure. The agreement limiting the board’s powers is effective for perpetuity or — should that be successfully challenged in court — at least “until 21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England living as of the date of this Declaration.”

'They're begging us to do something:' Nashville lawmaker calls for gun reform as hundreds protest after Covenant shooting

USA Today

Tennessee state Rep. Bob Freeman, D-Nashville, has struggled to find the words this week as his district, and the city at large, reels from the deadliest school shooting in state history that left three children and three staff dead on Monday.

Freeman grappled with the tragedy as an elected official and as a father, as his young daughter attended the same Sunday school class as one of the Covenant School victims.

"What's the right way to help a child grieve the loss of a friend and the loss of innocence?" Freeman asked his House colleagues.

"Parents dropped their kids off on a beautiful spring morning with no idea their lives would forever be changed at a moment of senseless gun violence."

Meta wants EU users to apply for permission to opt out of data collection

Ars Technica

Instead of a yes/no consent, Meta users will fill out a form and include justification.

Meta announced that starting next Wednesday, some Facebook and Instagram users in the European Union will for the first time be able to opt out of sharing first-party data used to serve highly personalized ads, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move marks a big change from Meta's current business model, where every video and piece of content clicked on its platforms provides a data point for its online advertisers.

People “familiar with the matter” told the Journal that Facebook and Instagram users will soon be able to access a form that can be submitted to Meta to object to sweeping data collection. If those requests are approved, those users will only allow Meta to target ads based on broader categories of data collection, like age range or general location.

Paratracheal abscess by plant fungus Chondrostereum purpureum- first case report of human infection

Medical Mycology Case Reports via Science Direct

Abstract

Chondrostereum purpureum, is a plant fungus causing silver leaf disease of plants, particularly of the rose family. Here we report a case of paratracheal abscess caused by C. purpureum. This is a first of its kind of a case wherein this plant fungus caused disease in a human. Conventional techniques (microscopy and culture) failed to identify the fungus. Only by sequencing, the identity of this unusual pathogen could be revealed. This case highlights the potential of environmental plant fungi to cause disease in humans and stresses the importance of molecular techniques to identify the causative fungal species.

Path forward for Thirty Meter Telescope and Mauna Kea begins to emerge

Astronomy

After years of protests that halted the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea and divided communities in Hawaii, a major change in the management of the summit is underway.

Since the beginning of this year, a new state-appointed oversight board has been preparing to assume management of Mauna Kea. Under a law signed in June 2022 by then-Hawaii Governor David Ige, a five-year transition period formally begins in July of this year. Then, in 2028, the Maunakea Stewardship Oversight Authority (MKSOA) will take over stewardship of the mountaintop from the University of Hawaii (UH), which has managed the site since 1968.

Crucially, the MKSOA includes representatives from both astronomical observatories and Native Hawaiian communities. Its members say it marks a new approach, one that for the first time gives Native Hawaiians a voting role in overseeing the mountaintop. And although board members don’t want to get ahead of the process, an emerging compromise could see the embattled TMT built atop the peak in exchange for the decommissioning of several telescopes.

Stressed plants ‘cry’ — and some animals can probably hear them

Nature

Plants do not suffer in silence. Instead, when thirsty or stressed, plants make “airborne sounds,” according to a study published today in Cell.

Plants that need water or have recently had their stems cut produce up to roughly 35 sounds per hour, the authors found. But well-hydrated and uncut plants are much quieter, making only about one sound per hour.

The reason you have probably never heard a thirsty plant make noise is that the sounds are ultrasonic — about 20–100 kilohertz. That means they are so high-pitched that very few humans could hear them. Some animals, however, probably can. Bats, mice and moths could potentially live in a world filled with the sounds of plants, and previous work by the same team has found that plants respond to sounds made by animals, too.

Ancient people lived among ruins too. What did they make of them?

Science

Around 500 C.E., a new government arose in the community now called Río Viejo, near the coast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It was once the largest city in the region, but it had shrunk by half and lost its political authority. The new rulers aimed to step into that power vacuum. But they had one problem: the ruins of a complex of ceremonial buildings built by Río Viejo’s last centralized government centuries earlier. When that government collapsed, the temples and plazas had been ritually burned and left to decay, a reminder that hierarchical rulership had already failed once in Río Viejo. How would the new leaders manage the threat it posed?

Arthur Joyce, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado (CU), Boulder, has found they did so by putting their stamp on the ruins with a massive offering and portraits of themselves, set on top of the eroded surface of the old buildings. “These new rulers may have been trying to assert control over this thing that by its very existence would have questioned the inevitability and legitimacy of their power,” Joyce says.

Mathematicians Excited About New 13-Sided Shape Called 'the Hat'

For some, tiles are rarely thought of unless it’s time for home renovations, but for mathematicians, they present plenty of conundrums—and a clever team has just cracked a particularly tricky one. Researchers identified a shape that was previously only theoretical: a 13-sided configuration called “the hat” that can tile a surface without repeating.

The hat is what’s known as an aperiodic monotile, which means that a single shape can tile a surface without any translational symmetry, or without its pattern ever repeating. The famous Penrose tilings are an example of aperiodic tiling, where the pattern is aperiodic but uses two different shapes.

The hat tiling only uses one shape, an “einstein,” which is German for “one stone,” making the pattern an aperiodic monotile. The 13-sided hat is a polykite shape, consisting of eight kites connected at their edges. The existence of an aperiodic monotile was purely theoretical until a research team led by mathematician David Smith and colleagues proved its existence in a preprint paper posted online this month.

Dire Straits performing 'Sultans Of Swing' in their first ever TV performance live on BBC's The Old Grey Whistle Test in May, 1978. This performance took place three days before the UK release of their debut single of the same name.

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